Day 24: our almost traditional trip up the Kahlenburg, starting to head home

The bus journey (cyclemeter) up and down the Kahlenberg has lots of wiggles.

Our supposed first-class sleeper train all the way from Vienna to Amsterdam failed. Firstly some time after midnight, we were told that this train would go no further than Nürnberg, where we arrived about 01:20. We were eventually loaded onto another sleeper which would take us to Köln. It departed around 02:30 and arrived around 06:30. The bathroom in our sleeper compartment on this train was locked, so 4 hours without a toilet wasn’t fun.

At Köln, we eventually were directed to a non-sleeper train which should have taken us directly to Amsterdam Centraal, but en route it got more and more delayed and so finally stopped at Utrecht, from where we got a local non-sleeper to Amsterdam Centraal. At Utrecht, I went out of the station for a smoke, and got a bollocking when I came back in for not checking in. (I have to commend Deutsche Bahn for having smoking areas on platforms, which would have prevented this.

So we arrived well over an hour late, and then had problems getting out of the station because our ticket had one bar-code, and so wouldn’t let Elly out after me. We were in no fit state to do anything but drop in the hotel bar waiting for the room to be ready. Here is cyclemeter’s record of the journey.

Day 25: in Amsterdam

I didn’t cyclemeter this day’s journeys, and took only one photo so I have no idea at all what we did.

Day 26: in Amsterdam

We went firstly went across the IJ (cyclemeter) to see the A’dam Tower (there are swings that take you over the parapet if you want – we didn’t) and to the Amsterdam Eye film museum to see Twisters 2. We also found This is Holland, which simulates flying around and over various sights in the Netherlands. it’s very well done, but I’m still curious why it has this name: ‘Holland’ only applies to two of the Netherlands’ 12 provinces.

Day 27: last full day in Amsterdam (until the next time)

We didn’t want to do much except sit in a park (the Vondelpark – fortunately no vandals or fondling) and watch people, then go to the cinema. Cyclemeter recorded our meanderings.

Day 28: our last meanderings in Amsterdam

A return visit to the Stadsarchief. As (almost) ever, here’s our trails. And here is the final journey from Amsterdam to home, apparently involving a beaching.

We arrived home to find our boiler wasn’t working. Fortunately, British Gas could come out the next day (Sunday!), and fix things: it needed a new circuit board and new sensors, and now I’m about to tackle the mountain of washing.

So our last Austrian destination until the next time: not only to the Muttiland but to the Muttistadt. There are so many things to do in Wien, some calls to the heart, but most of them needed slightly cooler weather. So we settled on staying cool and getting wet.

When we were first planning this trip, Elly said she’d like to go to Villach. I was excited mostly because it meant visiting Kärnten, a Land I’d not been to before. It’s lovely – ideally we will be back, perhaps simply to find the best water-slide on the Wörthersee, perhaps to go up a hill or two or perhaps to cycle along the Drau, all fuelled by Kaiserschmarrn and Vili.

It’s bleeding hot, looking for bodies. Nearly injured my pride. Crazed picnicking in the Styrian countryside

With apologies to PIL, but while it’s stinking hot, I have a cold and Elly isn’t feeling so good for other reasons.

here are the bride and groom we encountered yesterday:

I imagine my reader (there can be but one!) wants to know what I carry with me on holiday. So here’s a table.

So now you know whey it takes me ages to find anything while I’m travelling.!

So we’re now in our 9th city: Graz (after Newcastle, Amsterdam, Zaandam, Düsseldorf, Bregenz, Innsbruck, Bozen/Bolzano and Salzburg). That’s my excuse for being spaced, anyway. What’s yours? You should know we are in Gruts – they live in the high wood.

We both had fairly disturbed nights and the weather was even hotter than yesterday, so we bumbled around Salzburg, going to the Haus Der Natur (natural history museum – we both would have liked to learn what deposited the salt in the first place), and then up a lift to the viewpoint outside the modern art museum on the Mönchsberg.

Perhaps the sweetest moment of the trip so far was seeing a newly married couple being photographed at the Mönchsberg viewpoint. (I’ll add a photo when it arrives from Elly’s phone but the hotel wifi is crap again.

Dinner was at a different, larger branch of My Indigo.

Here is what cyclemeter thinks we did. All of this activity had to be interspersed with long pauses in the shade for rehydration.

I guess I should make this post cover tomorrow but I’m feeling all contrary – and I have time and decent hotel just now. Also but tomorrow I will have forgotten everything I did yesterday. (This is one reason for cyclemetering – the machine can remind me where I’ve been.

Not much impetus to do a full blog. I fear it would be tedious if I tried to give all the detail. And my laptop isn’t connecting to the hotel wifi. So just the bare bones of what we did each day, the inevitable cyclemetering and a few photos that I like. I can put up more photos when I’m back.